As a website owner you also want to keep your clients and customers informed with what’s going on in your business and portray yourself as the expert in your chosen field so you start a newsletter.

The most popular service for both a shopping cart and a newsletter is by far 1SC (1Shopping Cart). After all, spending $99/month to offer a newsletter, physical products and downloadable products seems like a steal considering how much you believe you will earn from your products.

The truth is it takes time to get a website found online and even when it does get found, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your visitors will purchase your products.  You have to have a superior product and portray that throughout your website.  Your newsletter has to have something of interest for it to get subscribers.

Depending on what you charge for your product, it could take you a long time to just break even when paying $99/month. What if there was an alternative to that costly monthly fee?

There is and it’s called Virtuemart and Acajoom. Virtuemart and Acajoom are made specifically for the CMS, Joomla and they are both free.

Virtuemart-

Virtuemart is a fully functional, high powered shopping cart made specifically for Joomla.  Some of the features it includes are:

• Shopper groups-this allows you to be able to offer discounts to customer A but not customer B.  This is a great feature so that you can offer discounts to repeat customers.
• Multiple currency
• Shipping address based tax calculation
• Unlimited number of products
• Online Catalog
• Featured products
• RSS feeds to update subscribers on new products
• Easily add and remove products
• Live credit card processing or pre-defined payment gateways like paypal, authorize.net and more

Acajoom-

• Unlimited subscribers
• Subscription through URL
• Create a default HTML template for each mailing
• Unlimited lists, you can have a list for marketing tips, a list for startup tips, a list for whatever you want and have different subscribers to each.

You may be saying it’s great that all this stuff is free but I already have a website so I don’t want to redo it.  That’s perfectly understandable.

It will cost you approximately $900 or less to get a full-featured shopping cart, newsletter manager, and easy to update website. With 1SC, you are STILL going to either have to put in a LOT of work to set it up, template it, configure it, load the products, etc. In fact, the SAME amount of work that is required for a Joomla site. And you’ll have to either do the work, or pay for it, at about the same rate.

The real comparison is not in setup fees – those are the same. The real comparison is in monthly. A Joomla/VM setup can be maintained for $35 or less per month, and with that, you can often get assistance and advice on how to actually EARN with the site. Compared to 1SC, that’s a significant savings.

Let’s do the math:

Shopping cart and newsletter using 1SC-$99/month
Joomla, Virtuemart and Acajoom-$35/month
1SC for 1 year-$1188
Joomla, Virtuemart, and Acajoom for 1 year-$420
That’s a difference of $768 for 1 year

The proof is in the math.

I understand change is tough. Especially when you have virtual assistants, coaches, marketers etc telling you to stick with 1SC but the truth is, you could really be costing your business a lot of unneeded money waste.

If you don’t mind wasting thousands of dollars to keep in touch with your clients and sell your products online because 1SC is the “norm,” then more power to you. But if you are looking for a cost-effective, long-term solution to your newsletter and shopping cart needs, give us a call and we can help you decide which solution is right for you.

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For example, unless you are targeting other coaches, it is not enough to just hold a seminar about being a coach.  You have to hold a seminar that is more focused such as how to get ahead of the crowd in business, how to gain self-confidence, or how to handle the more difficult aspects of business.

Potential clients don’t care so much about what you do; just how you do it and it works. They want to know that if they implement your strategies and ideals, they will get where they want to be. Once they start implementing your teachings and they see that they work, you will start to get referrals to your business.

If you want to use a Seminar for promoting your services, then the promotion of the services should be only on the edges, not the central content. For example, announcing at the beginning, who you are, and what you do. And then a short suggestion at the end, that they can get more, and where. If you hold an offline seminar, then bring handouts that are branded to give your attendees more info on what you offer, and keep the sales pitches out of the content. The majority of the time you spend should be on TEACHING, not on promoting. This is especially important if you charge for the seminar.

If you do a seminar about your industry and not actually teach them anything, they will come away feeling as if they were cheated and feel as if they just paid to sit through one great big huge advertisement.

For offline seminars, bring your own branded pens, and prepare a printed handout. Put some useful tips on the handout – not your whole presentation, but some nice “ah-ha” bullet points or tips that are useful even if someone DIDN’T attend your seminar. Brand it at the bottom with your logo, contact info, and a short line about what you do. Leave the back blank – for note taking. This handout can serve two purposes – combined with the pens, you just handed people a way to take notes. Plus, you’ve given them a sharable info sheet – bring extras, and invite your audience to share them with friends. If you just hand out business cards or brochures, it won’t have nearly the power it does if you prepare something about the seminar and send them home with that.

The secret to a good seminar is giving your attendees the feeling of empowerment. They need to feel as if they have learned something.

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This is a great way to get the word out about some wonderful pets that haven’t had the best of luck in their lives so far that are just looking for a home. You can check out my website at www.petloverwebsites.com Contact Us to get your pet spotlighted.

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Daphne told Scooby and Shaggy about the food because she knew that was something they wanted and needed so it encouraged them to take the next step. This same principle can be applied to websites as well.  The purpose of a website is to not only give visitors an overview of your business but to encourage them to take the next step.

Your website visitors need to know that what you offer them is what they need or that it will make their life easier. It’s not enough to just tell them “you need us and we can make your life easier”.  You need to tell them why they need you and how you can make their life easier.  This requires you to get inside the head of your visitors. Unfortunately unless you know exactly what kind of challenges your clients have, this can be a very daunting task.

For example, a company who provides therapy services to children with disabilities needs to show their visitors that they understand how protective they are of their children. They need to show their visitors that while they push their children to make progress, they also take the child’s innocence and vulnerabilities into consideration.  Meaning they don’t push them so hard that they are traumatized. Once the site visitors get the feeling of reassurance, they will take the next step.

Visitors to your site see your business as just a faceless company on the internet but if your content provides them with the feeling of reassurance and trust, you will see your visitors turn into paying clients. If they can see that what you have is what they want or need, they WILL take the next step.

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1. Go to start >control panel
2. Click on add/remove programs or programs and features in Vista
3. Locate Wildblue Optimizer
4. Click to uninstall
5. Once it’s done uninstalling reopen your web browser and try logging in to your cpanels again and see if you can now login

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My virtual assistant websites are going for $35.  These are ones that I have created with the virtual assistant in mind.  The design caters to the type of business they are in and what point they want to get across to potential clients.  They come preinstalled with the website package.  What you see is what you get, absolutely no customization at all.

My websites are absolutely worth MORE than I am charging so some may question why I am doing this.  Some may chalk it up to my being inexperienced. Some may say it’s just because I am trying to undercut other designers. Those are not the reasons at all. I charge such a low price because that is what my target market demands.

Virtual assisting is advertised all over the internet as being the cheapest home-based business there is to start.  As long as you have a phone, internet, computer and printer you can start a VA business.  What isn’t advertised though is that having a website is essential to the virtual assistant business and if they don’t have any web design knowledge it can be extremely difficult to get a great looking website that portrays their business in a positive light-leaving them feeling frustrated and ready to quit before they even start.

Because of this advertising, many virtual assistants start out with absolutely no disposable income.  They can be single parents or people working full-time outside of the home because they need money to pay their bills and they live paycheck to paycheck leaving no money left for extras.  They can also be stay at home parents who are looking to supplement their spouse’s already tight income. The point is, they don’t have the money to pay for a customized, professional design that can run anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to a thousand or more so they take the feat on themselves and end up producing a sub standard product causing them loss of potential clients and holding back their business.

I did have website packages for the virtual assistant that started out at $350 and went up to $900 and then I realized that most virtual assistants starting out just do not have that type of money to pay for a website. Now granted, that system was much more robust then the type of system I am providing now but for a virtual assistant just starting out, the new system will suit them fine.

When running a business and pricing your services/products you do have to keep in mind what you are worth and you also have to keep in mind how much you want to make a year but you also have to keep in mind how much your target market can afford.  If your target market is non-profits, they are not going to be able to pay you $100/hour for services but if you need to make that much make non-profits a sub-market. Don’t make it your main market, if you do, you will have a hard time finding clients.

You adjust the workload to the fee charged. When an industry requires low prices, you find ways to cut your time and make it affordable. You provide more automated options, and more online training instead of personal calls. You provide the value in ways that take less of your time, and you then make up the cost of creating those resources in volume sales.

The old adage of you get what you pay for is not always true.  Just because somebody charges $15/ hour on some services does not mean they are putting out a substandard product they could just be in touch with their potential clientele and know how much they can afford while also making a nice income for themselves.

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I understand that Virtual Assistants are do-it-yourselfers by nature so why wouldn’t you want to create your own website. Unfortunately, you take on the feat and you realize how overwhelmed you are because you don’t know basic html or you don’t know how to configure a Wordpress site.

That’s why we have decided to put our web design expertise to use helping virtual assistants like you get a website you can be proud of without breaking the bank.  We are now offering pre-configured wordpress websites for $35.  This gets you a pre-configured website with a professional design with one of our pre-installed templates and all you have to do is add the content and do the SEO (which we can help if needed).  We even take care of backing up the site and offer marketing instructions.

Or if you are looking for a custom design, we do those as well.  For $150 we can create a custom design using your logo, your colors, and your personality so that it appeals to your potential clients.

For more information visit Your VA Website and contact us so we can get you a professional website that WILL make you money.

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Besides the fact that the website was very unprofessional the two photos that they used were obviously stolen from an online stock photography site.  They still had the watermark that is placed on photos so that people DON’T steal them.  The only way to get rid of the watermark is to purchase the rights to the photos.

What concerns me is if they are willing to steal a photo that they could get for $1.52 how do they treat their clients?  What kind of excess fees do they charge their clients and what kind of BS stories do they tell their clients just to get more money out of them?

I can’t emphasize this enough make sure you KNOW who you are dealing with when you hire somebody online, before you hand over your hard earned money.

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As a business owner, you have to take responsibility for your billing practices.  If that means that your billing system had some glitches in it and a client was under charged, then it is your responsibility to get in touch with that client and explain the situation.  Most of them will be very understanding.  They will appreciate the fact that you made the effort to inform them of your mistake so that they are not in for a shock when they get their next bill.

Those who get upset with you and refuse to pay it, then you may just have to eat that cost. After all, it was your mistake.  It is unethical to just spring an additional charge on a client without informing them because you made a mistake.  Sure the mistake may cost you a lot of money but I guarantee that mistake wouldn’t happen again.

A consumer has the RIGHT to expect that the charges their bill states are the correct charges.  It IS the responsibility of the consumer to make sure the bill is correct. But it is the responsibility of the business to make it right if errors are pointed out. Mistakes happen – we know that. But good businesses take the responsibility instead of trying to push it off onto the customer.

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When one person goes into the hospital it’s upsetting but you can handle it and you still think that you are invincible that it would never happen to you and you go about your business normally (maybe with just a little bit more stress) but when you have three that go in at the same time when they were just fine right before, it makes you stop and think.
You still have that feeling that wow this sucks but I’m healthy so I don’t need to change my habits and I can go about my daily life normally because this won’t happen to me.  Then someplace deep inside your mind and your soul you have your doubts that you are still invincible.  I’m going through that right now.

I know I need to change things but change is difficult. In our lives we have gotten so content on the way things are and the way we do things and after all we have been living this long so why do we need to change anything. Yes, it’s true that with the advancement of medical technology people are living longer every day but do you want to put your family through the worry and the stress of the medical problems that may arise 10 or 20 years down the road?

Even with all this talk of changing your lifestyle and habits believe it or not there is something much more important than that. That is your family.  I have always said that my family comes first.  It comes before my business and I still continue to live by that principle. In fact, just the other day I was telling a friend and colleague of mine that I want my business to be successful but I don’t want my business to be so successful that I don’t have time for my family.

My mother has told me that my life is my kids and that isn’t healthy.  Here’s the thing, my kids are only little once and if I can spend my time with my kids that’s great.  My oldest is 8 and my youngest is 5.  In 10 years my oldest will be moving out, going to college, making his own decisions and he won’t be needing his parents that much anymore.  In 10 years my daughter will be 15 and she will be into herself, her friends, and her boyfriends as she tries to find herself in this world and she will gradually no longer be needing me.  That breaks my heart but that is the cycle of being a parent.

Sure there may be some regrets but one regret that I know I will not have is not spending enough time with my children and wondering if my children know that I love them.  At this time in my life, my children are my life and I am loving every minute (well for the most part).

So before you leave this life, ask yourself a few questions.  What will I leave behind in this life?  Will it be positive or negative?  Will I regret the time I didn’t spend with my family because I was too busy?

Society puts so much emphasis on money and success and while you do need money for the basics, you can’t take that to your grave.  But you can take your memories and know that you left some kind of legacy behind.

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